Capital City Arts Initiative

Exhibition Dates: September 18 – December 11, 2024
Artist’s Reception: Tuesday, October 22, 5 – 6:30pm; essay writer’s introduction at 5:30
Exhibition Venue: Bristlecone Gallery, Western Nevada College, 2201 W College Parkway, Carson City, Nevada

A Glimpse Back
Exhibition in WNC’s Bristlecone Gallery

Capital City Arts Initiative is delighted to present work by the late artist, Robert Morrison, in the A Glimpse Back exhibition. His work reflected an active and ongoing dialogue between both geometric and organic forces.

CCAI’s exhibit will be in Western Nevada College’s Bristlecone Gallery, 2201 W College Parkway, Carson City from September 18 – December 11, 2024. The gallery is open to the public, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. The exhibition reception will take place on Tuesday, October 22, 5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Morrison (1941 – 2018), created countless sculptures, paintings, and drawings during his lifetime. Late in his career, his metal sculptures evolved to include sound. A major installation work was Tongues: The Half Life of Morphine (1986) presented by the Nevada Museum of Art as part of Robert Morrison: A Retrospective in 2004. Quoted from the Museum’s catalog by the same title, critic Jeff Kelley wrote: “As a sculptor, he works with manufactured steel plate. As a performer, he works with electronic and ambient sound. That he is and uses both suggests the degree to which neither, alone, defines his identity as an artist. Like an endless string of reflections, that identity teeters on the edge of powerful dualities: abstraction and figuration, masculine and feminine, denial and expression, mass communication and isolation, silence and speech — maybe even father and son, which, if you are a man and an artist represents both the power and powerlessness of your own personality.”

Morrison created and showed his art for over five decades in many group and one-person exhibitions locally and nationally, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Florida, Texas, and New York. He earned a bachelor’s degree from California State University, Fresno, a master’s degree from Stanford University, and did post-graduate studies at the University of California, Davis. Sculpture Magazine did a feature article on Morrison written by William L. Fox in its March, 2005, edition. The National Endowment for the Arts awarded Morrison a Visual Arts Fellowship in 1990 and the Nevada Arts Council awarded him Visual Arts Fellowships in 1990 and 1984. He was Professor in the Art Department and chair of the sculpture program at the University of Nevada Reno from 1968 – 2017 and was awarded Emeritus status on his retirement.

Dr. Brett Van Hoesen wrote the exhibition essay for A Glimpse Back about her colleague and friend. She is Associate Professor and Area Head of Art History at the University of Nevada, Reno. She holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Iowa and a M.A. in Art History from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her graduate training was significantly shaped by a Ford Foundation-sponsored Crossing Borders fellowship and a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship to study at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. In 2019, Van Hoesen received Nevada Humanities’ Outstanding Teaching of the Humanities award. She lives in Reno with her husband and two sons.

Carlos Ramirez, a former Western Nevada College Latino Leadership Academy student, provided a Spanish translation of the show’s wall text.

Western Nevada College is a component of the Nevada System of Higher Education, with campuses in Carson City, Douglas County, and Fallon. CCAI is an artist-centered nonprofit organization committed to community engagement in contemporary visual arts through exhibitions, illustrated talks, arts education programs, artist residencies, and online activities.

The Initiative is funded by the John and Grace Nauman Foundation, Nevada Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Nevada Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, Kaplan Family Charitable Fund, Southwest Gas Corporation Foundation, Steele & Associates LLC, and CCAI sponsors and members.

right image: Robert Morrison, Baboon Nurse, steel, 69″x36″x5″, 1998
left image: Robert Morrison, Night Chair, steel, 29″x11″x13″, 1992
center image: A Glimpse Back exhibition flier